Quincy mayor's budget includes police hires, expanded public works

Tuesday

May 6, 2014 at 6:00 AMMay 6, 2014 at 4:27 PM

Patrick Ronan The Patriot Ledger @pronan_Ledger

Mayor Thomas Koch’s $268.5 million budget plan includes new hires in the police department, an expansion of the public works department, pay raises for 67 non-union workers and a spike in city debt payments.

The original story published by the Patriot Ledger on Tuesday failed to mention that Koch's proposed 28 percent hike in the public works budget - from $4.4 million to $5.9 million - covers mostly existing positions that would be transferred from the public safety's traffic control department. Koch wants 17 positions moved from public safety to public works, including an operations manager, traffic engineers, parking control officers, painters, foremen and special laborers.

However, Koch is proposing new hires in the public works department - one foreman and about $225,000 to hire new laborers.

Koch presented his budget proposal for fiscal year 2015, which starts July 1, to the city council Monday night. The council will debate the budget at several meetings and will likely approve a final budget by mid-June.

Koch’s overall budget is a 4.1 percent increase from this year’s $257.8 million budget. The mayor is calling for an education budget of $94.1 million, a 3.2 percent bump from this year.

Including public works, Koch is proposing a 9-percent increase in the city’s infrastructure-management budget as a whole. This also includes increases in the public buildings, parks, drain and snow and ice budgets.

Improving infrastructure is also at the center of a proposed 15-percent jump in the debt-service budget – from $13.2 million to $15.2 million. Christopher Walker, a spokesman for Koch, said the increase is due in large part to payments owed on the new Central Middle School, new Quincy High School and Koch’s $25 million capital improvement plan that included several flood-control projects.

Koch said debt service makes up about 5.7 percent of the entire budget for fiscal 2015, and he’d like to keep it at that level in the coming years by investing in new projects once others are paid off. He said the average community in the state allocates about 8 percent of its total budget to debt-service spending.

“You can’t keep kicking the can down the road on infrastructure improvements, on our buildings,” Koch said. “Whether it’s sea walls, whether it’s drainage improvements, utilities, all these things are public assets and it’s our job as custodians of those assets to maintain them and improve them for future generations.”

Koch is also proposing a $25.3 million police budget, a 3.3 percent increase from this year and enough to hire 10 new officers. If approved, it would be the fourth straight year the city expands the department, pushing the total number of city patrolmen to over 160.

“It gets us closer to a number I’m more comfortable with,” Koch said.

Koch is also recommending salary increases for 67 non-union city employees, including a 30-percent bump for himself from $122,474 to $160,000. Koch hasn’t received a raise since he took office in 2008.

All of the non-union salary increases were recommended last fall by a special panel appointed by the mayor.

Unlike in previous years, Koch did not predict next year’s average tax bill for city residents during his annual budget presentation. Koch said he wants to wait for the assessors department to finish its ongoing property revaluation process before he makes any projections.

Most communities don’t release tax-bill information until the state Department of Revenue sets the tax rates in late fall. However, Koch has voluntarily made early projections during the spring budget season.

“The last couple years we’ve been pretty near where we estimated, but there are just too many moving parts right now,” he said.

He added that he expects the tax-bill increases to be “modest” like in recent years.